This article includes a number of statements by the Brazilian artist Rubem Valentim (1922–91) about his two-decade career that spanned the 1950s to the 1970s. He mentions his intention to express popular culture through a contemporary artistic language. His work is unique in its use of African religious symbols (such as those from the candomblé in northeastern Brazil) and the way he has applied them to the modern constructive tradition. He created geometric emblems derived from African traditional symbols (Yoruba or Angolan candomblé) or their symbiotic blend with Catholicism (such as umbanda or macumba).
The title “Manifesto ainda que tardio” is Valentim’s ironic way of emphasizing his awareness of Brazil’s cultural complexity as a totally free fusion of western and African influences. The phrase “Libertas Quæ Será Tamen” [Freedom, albeit it tardy] was one of the libertarian slogans of the Inconfidência Mineira [Minas Gerais Conspiracy] (1789), which is now the motto on the flag of the state of Minas Gerais.
As a self-taught artist, Valentim was deeply involved in the renewal movement that emerged in the state of Bahia, where there had also been a Conjuração Baiana (1798). He earned a grant to travel to Europe in 1962, where he studied African art and later participated in the First World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar (Senegal) in 1966. The art critic Mário Pedrosa wrote about this in the Catálogo da exposição de Rubem Valentim (Rio de Janeiro: Galeria Bonino, 1967).
